Interview with Donna Neuwirth: Co-founder and Executive Director of Wormfarm Institute
The DTour gives artists and farmers an opportunity to connect in rural Wisconsin. Illustration by Beyond the Clock Storyteller + Illustrator-in-Residence, Nhatt Nichols.
Donna Neuwirth WAS A FEATURED RURAL ROCKSTAR GUEST FOR THE April 2024 BEYOND THE CLOCk.
In this conversation, Donna shared stories of co-founding and growing Wormfarm Institute, their practice of "get dirty, eat well, and make art," and invited us to consider questions such as: How do we prepare for a change of seasons? And, what does the land have to tell us and teach us about transitions?
About Donna:
Donna Neuwirth is the co-founder and executive director of Wormfarm Institute in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin, a nonprofit dedicated to integrating culture and agriculture through public programs and artist-led initiatives. Since its inception in 2011, Donna has served as artistic/project director for the Farm/Art DTour, a 50-mile self-guided drive punctuated by site-responsive artwork. Under her leadership, the DTour has become a model for rural creative placemaking, featured in the New York Times and PBS Newshour. The DTour and other programs, including Fermentation Fest: A Live Culture Convergence, the Reedikulus Puppet Festival and The Re-enchantment of Agriculture, grew out of a foundational farm-based residency program that invites artists to get dirty, eat well and make art, celebrating its 24th year this growing season. Donna currently serves on the board of the Sauk County Development Corporation and is part of a growing cross-sector constellation of organizations and leaders who value the crucial roles that rural communities will play in creating a livable future for all.
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN Donna Neuwirth AND NHATT NICHOLS
Nhatt:
In the Beyond the Clock session, you said something about how we have to live with people who disagree with us, which I think is one of the things about being artists in rural communities that is really compelling: this inability to escape people who don't agree with us.
Donna:
We have always lived near other people, and we don't necessarily share worldviews; it's just now that it's a polarized time. The main people that we know might see the world a little bit differently than we do. Why wouldn't they? They've had different sets of experiences.
The difficulty is that it's been weaponized, so we have to be a little bit more careful to still be good neighbors. The person I think probably feels very differently from us hauled us out of a ditch on the first day we moved in. You can still be neighbors and you can still negotiate space with people who feel very differently than you. I think that rural folks are more used to doing that.
Nhatt:
I find interesting conversations happen when you can shift the conversation away from polarizing subjects and bring art and curiosity in. Have you had moments where surprising people interact with art?
Donna:
That's what it's all about. If your curiosity is sparked, then there's a free exchange of human interaction that just happens naturally. It wasn't necessarily the aim, but we noticed it.
When we first started the DTour, one of the landowners, one of the landowners, who may have had some opposing views on a variety of subjects, was very supportive. He hosted one of the artworks on his farm, and he ended up being our champion and speaking on behalf of the whole project at the county board meetings, because he saw from his own frame of reference that it was a good thing.
As we say, some people come for the art and trip over farming, and some people come for the farms and trip over art. We have recognized that one enhances the other, and when you're in that moment of challenging your own assumptions, then you're in an open place.
Nhatt:
I often think about art as a tool for gathering somebody's attention and curiosity. What works so well for you is the ephemeral nature of the DTour.
Donna:
That is the strength of it. Absolutely.
Nhatt:
It is really clever. Did you it was going to really make this big of an impact?
Donna:
First, we did a lot of other things. When we moved here, we had a residency program. Then when we purchased a derelict building on Main Street, we became truly and literally invested in the community. We still had that opportunity to experiment, and that's when we started doing gallery shows. We would do fine art and curiosities; we prepared the work of an artist that we found compelling and paired it with a collection of, for example, tractor seats or taxidermy, engaging another community member who was very excited about the thing that they did.
One group of people would come from one set of contacts, and the others would come from another, and it wasn't a huge thing we could make money off of, but it was a really great place to experiment.
It was only by doing things that we realized how people responded or didn't respond. And one thing would inevitably lead to another thing. So it was only after we did a bunch of fine art and curiosity things, four years of giant puppet festivals closing down Main Street, and a couple of murals, that we wanted to have something that would last for a while that was responsive to the history and culture of this region.
We applied for the Our Town Grant, asset based community development with arts at its core. We wanted to have something that was free for everyone and wasn't asking people to recognize it as art but to pay attention to the thing. And so we did as a pilot, not having any idea that it would last for fourteen years.
Nhatt:
Everybody understands the value of a gathering. I personally may not want to go to every single barn jam that happens in my neighborhood. But I do understand the value of these things and the value of seeing each other because it's harder to see other humans out here.
Donna:
Absolutely. There's this great history of the circus coming to town, this thing that comes and then goes away.
Nhatt:
it's so ephemeral that, like, it's a lot of effort for two weekends.
Donna:
Exactly. What it does is trigger these collaborative relationships that are ongoing in ways that couldn't have been imagined. And that, you know, it can be everything from somebody whose farm was hosting an artwork, to basement winemakers. The thing about rural entrepreneurial imagination is that as soon as they see that people really will show up, they'll come up with a way to benefit from it.
Many thanks to both Donna and Nhatt Nichols. Beyond the Clock is made possible with support from the Rural Assembly, in partnership with Voices for Rural Resilience.